The fourth-quarter personal foul call against Arkansas' Malcolm Sheppard immediately preceding a Florida touchdown that tied the game at 20 was a bad call -- a ridiculous call, actually, in an era increasingly defined by the emphasis on "protecting the player":

But it was a routine ridiculous call; that is, it didn't have any obvious, direct influence on the outcome. It was only second down, there were more than nine minutes to go in the game and Florida had already driven within field goal range. The flag didn't alter the fact that Arkansas kicker Alex Tejada hooked the second of two crucial missed field goal attempts moments later, or that Florida drove into position for the winning kick with no flags or controversy whatsoever on its next possession. No one was hurt, and Sheppard wasn't ejected. It was your garden variety bad call during the course of the game.

But in its effort to fuel the indignation of jilted fans everywhere, the SEC has elected to publicly set the record straight on a specific, controversial call for the second time in three weeks:

Every Monday, the league reviews calls from its games as standard procedure. It released a statement Monday saying, "After video review, there was no evidence on the video to support the personal foul penalty called on Arkansas midway through the fourth quarter."

The subtext: This reprimand/correction was levied against the same crew that was publicly corrected by the league office two weeks ago for the universally reviled excessive celebration penalty against Georgia's A.J. Green following a late, go-ahead touchdown in the Bulldogs' eventual loss to LSU. Not exactly a vote of confidence when the same crew suits up Saturday for Alabama-Tennessee.

The weird thing about the conference's correction of the call against Green was that it declined to comment on the identical call against LSU's Charles Scott a few seconds later. Again, the decision to address the call against Sheppard today was accompanied by a refusal to comment on the equally controversial call that preceded it, a ticky-tack (at best) pass intereference against Arkansas cornerback Ramon Broadway, because that was "a judgment call," and "a review of those calls have been communicated to Arkansas." (There was no comment on the no-call on a possible offensive pass interference -- pictured -- against Cooper that might have prevented an interception, either.) And deciding whether or not a specific hit or celebratory gesture falls within the bounds of acceptable sportsmanship isn't a "judgment call"?

In the same way that the Big Ten has backed itself into a corner by requiring suspensions for every last stray hit, if the SEC is going to bother undermining public confidence in its officials for every random bad call, it has to set the record straight on all the calls, or else refer to them all as "judgment calls" and keep the review/correction process in-house with the emphasis on getting them right in the future and let the fans complain about being jobbed like every group of losing fans after every close loss ever.

Complaining about the refs is an inherent, time-honored aspect of losing -- most of us accept this by age 13 or so -- but there's no reason in this case the SEC couldn't have publicly called the flag against Sheppard a "judgment call" and communicated the results of that review to Arkansas; it didn't carry the urgency of a last-second decision that directly, obviously affected the outcome with no time to overcome it. (See, for an example of that kind of call, the Missouri-Colorado "fifth down" play, or the infamous Oklahoma-Oregon onside kick in 2006, which explicitly prevented Oklahoma from kneeling down for the win.) Constantly validating run-of-the-mill complaints accomplishes nothing, and only makes the officials job that much harder in the future -- "Hey, good luck in Tuscaloosa, fellas, and remember: If you're a little quick on the draw again when Rolando McClain pops Jonathan Crompton along the Tide sideline, you're going to hear about it from them and next Monday's press release. Have a great time!"